I was born at Klari, my ancestral village in Kerala, on April 14, 1955. According to the beliefs of the time, that was an auspicious moment, being the first day of the new year in Malabar. If any particular privilege came to me on account of this happenstance, I am not aware of it. I was educated at Moscow, Madras and New Delhi. Subsequently, I trained as an economist at Oxford and Cambridge. I am an applied economist working in the areas of macroeconomics and development. Though my work had been published in the professional journals, I am perhaps better known for my books ‘Pricing and Inflation in India’ (OUP India,1991), ‘Economic Growth in India: History and Prospect’ (OUP India, 2010) and ‘India’s Economy from Nehru to Modi: A Brief History’ (Permanent Black, 2022). I have held appointments at Worcester College of Oxford University, the Indian Statistical Institute at Delhi, the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode and Ashoka University, Sonipat. I have served as a consultant to the International Labour Organisation, Reserve Bank of India and UNDP, as the Country Economist for Ukraine at the World Bank and as the Director of the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) at Thiruvananthapuram. I have participated in the public discourse on India’s economy for over three decades via my writing in the media. I remain an Honorary Visiting Professor of CDS.